


hey all you cool cats and kittens

by prettysicknasty



Series: five gets tortured with love [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Cat Ears, Cat/Human Hybrids, Comfort, Dysfunctional Family, Fluff, Humor, No Incest, No Sex, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, One Shot Collection, only happy family times, sfw, yes their therapist is linda she will always be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 02:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30048411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettysicknasty/pseuds/prettysicknasty
Summary: A series of of one shots from my other story "you've cat to be kitten me right meow" featuring Catboy Five and just straight up Cat Five. No continuity, no linear plot. Each chapter is completely standalone. Read the other story before you read these though, or else they won't make sense!
Series: five gets tortured with love [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2168394
Kudos: 5





	hey all you cool cats and kittens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just needed to get a first chapter out there to establish this fic but uh im not rlly happy with this first chapter lmao. i promise any other chapters i add will be better written and such. i just needed a start, ya know? updating for this fic will be irregular as hell, i probably won't come back to it for a while until i finish up my other fic ideas rn, but i do have more shorts i plan to write. uh, enjoy? i guess?

When the family had figured out how to turn Five back into a human, it only worked halfway. 

While Five tried to find a solution to making him become fully human again and not just human plus cat ears and a tail, he quickly realized there would be no easy fix.

But Five was a reasonable man. He could live with this. 

It's not like he was back in the apocalypse or reliving his worst nightmares. It was just some stupid extra body parts.

If they really start to bother him, he can just wear a hat and wrap his tail up somehow. 

He was _not_ just trying to find the positives in this situation because he was stuck with it, he wasn't. He just _decided_ that it wasn't a big deal...

The rest of his siblings would not believe him when he said that though.

And to be fair to them, he didn't exactly _act_ like it was all fine. 

Teal still wasn't allowed to visit anymore because after Five had gotten all the data he could from them, he no longer needed them... _alive_.

So the rest of the Hargreeves occasionally visit the other, becoming cautious friends with them, seeing as Alvarez was technically one of them now. A fellow super powered individual.

They were safer at their own place, especially since Five still refused to leave the house.

He had attempted murder and was now abstaining from stepping foot outside.

But yeah, he was doing _great_.

The novelty of teasing Five about this turn of events wore off pretty quickly. Once everyone in the family gained at least one new scar thanks to the boy, they didn't have as much fun embarrassing him. Well, all except Klaus who had no concern for his own health. Five's beginning to suspect his brother may just be a masochist, which is it's own deterrent against Five's attacks. He shivered at the idea of feeding into _that_ whole mess. 

Just because they stopped openly teasing though, didn't mean that they weren't still getting a kick out of it.

After Klaus had that _wonderful_ discovery of Five still being weak to pets, his siblings made it their mission to see what other invisible feline traits he'd kept as well. 

Unless they caught him by surprise, which they usually couldn't, he didn't allow anyone within touching distance of him.

But there were other things they could do.

Like whirl a laser-pointer around and watch Five dash back and forth trying to catch it. He has since dismantled every one he could find in the house, but his siblings could easily buy more of the cheap lights.

These feline instincts were agonizing. 

The tail and the ears weren't the only cat things he'd kept when he half-transformed back. Now he exhibited a lot more catlike behavior than ever before.

For example, Five has become a master of stealth. He was already skilled before this whole transformation, but with the addition of this predatory hunting skill, he became completely unnoticeable. He could sneak into a room and hide in a corner for hours before anyone realized.

Unless Klaus was in the room, because Ben apparently always had an eye out for him.

Another trait he'd kept was the intense desire to knock things off of tables and shelves. Any precious items that Luther wanted to keep from their dear old father had to be put away in boxes after the third vase was shattered. Five couldn't really find it in him to feel guilty about that.

A particularly bothersome one he'd inherited was a cat's aversion to water.

He could no longer take showers, and outright _refused_ to take baths.

He wasn't about to lick himself clean though, he wasn't _that_ far gone. This just meant that he had to go back to his apocalypse days and use a wet washcloth and bar of soap. Not ideal but it was just another thing that was going to be his new normal. It's not like he wasn't already used to this type of bathing anyway.

So while he was mostly human, and could hide his physical discrepancies if need be, it was still very obvious that he was, and for the foreseeable future would remain, half cat. 

Also, despite having the option to hide his additional appendages, Five rarely did so. Any hats he put over his ears squished the bothersome things against his head uncomfortably, or made two very obvious lumps where his ears couldn't fully flatten. He also maintained that terrible feeling whenever something went over his face or over his head, which made hats a doubly unappealing fix.

His tail was even worse. When he tried to wrap it up in someway and hide it under his clothes, the limb seemed to get even more agitated than usual and would whip around violently out of his control until it freed itself.

Because of this, he mostly just _'let his freak flag fly'_ as Klaus would say.

It was easier on everyone if he just let them be free to move as they wished. If he put all of his concentration into it, he was able to keep them still, but he couldn't really do that because some of his attention had to always be alert for one of his siblings. 

The no touch rule was one he was flexible on at first, but he quickly caught onto the fact that every single one of his siblings was a conniving little bastard. Even Vanya, whom he thought he could trust, had gotten him to let his guard down and then trapped him in a two hour petting session where he fell asleep with his head on their lap. 

Five did not make the same mistake twice.

Things were okay though.

They weren't _great_ , obviously, but they weren't so terrible either. Then again, Five did have an incredibly warped view of what was bad versus what was good. In his mind, as long as his siblings weren't dead and the world not destroyed, all was well.

Apparently, according to the other Hargreeves and the family therapist, there was more to life than just that. 

He didn't care to get into that though. Mostly, these days were spent trying to acclimate him to his new life as half cat half boy, as well as getting him used to a world where he didn't have a job assassinating people or having to spend every waking moment fighting for survival.

Which brought him to another one of his newly announced problems.

They were still discovering every day what other things he could do, and what characteristics he still had.

The most recent one was his desire to be up high.

Five had explained it away as always needing to be on the high ground in case of an attack, but that was just an excuse that no one in the family believed. 

Their family therapist, Dr. Linda, had analyzed this newfound instinct as a desire to be taller. He was already shorter than he was supposed to be at fifty eight, but his time as a cat had made him even smaller. By being on top of furniture, he was able to raise his height and therefore appear more intimidating. In order to assert dominance, he was compensating for his lack of height. 

Five thought this was complete bullshit and he refused to believe it. 

Regardless of his reasons for doing it, Five had become quite the climber.

There weren't often times where he was in a room with other people and wasn't atop some piece of furniture. Whenever he realized his positioning, thanks to amused looks by his siblings, he forced himself to move back down to ground level.

However, when he did that he had an ever-present itch to be taller that didn't leave until everyone was gone.

Five didn't really see what the big deal was. It's not like this was an actual _problem_.

"Five, please come down." Allison closed her eyes and ran a tired hand down her face as she looked up to where Five was currently crouching on top of a very tall shelf. 

His tail flicked back and forth as he peered down at her, narrowing his eyes. He let out a petulant huff.

"Why?"

She threw her hands into the air in exasperation, "It's dangerous. You could fall."

Five fixed her with a deadpan stare, "I'm an assassin. I've killed more people than you could even imagine with your tiny brain. I'm not gonna get hurt from a little fall."

Allison shook her head at him, as if _he_ was the one being difficult.

To her credit, she was just trying to get him to come down for dinner, so it wasn't a completely out-of-nowhere request. But she insisted on the family all eating together in the dining room, which would mean that Five would have to get down or take his dinner on top of the very small amount of space that he was currently occupying. There was barely enough room for him to be crouched on top of the shelf, let alone him and a dinner plate full of food.

But the height was just too good to give up. He'd get dinner later.

"Please? Vanya wants us to eat together. As a _family."_

A bold move, using the Vanya card. Bringing up his favorite brother was a surefire way to get him to listen to reason. Also using a little family bonding to guilt him into it.

But...

He shrugged nonchalantly, "I'm not hungry." 

It didn't matter. He was comfortable.

Without looking back down to Allison, he curled up in his spot and closed his eyes. Maybe he could get in a few moments of rest before his family inevitably decided to bother him again.

"Are you _sleeping?_ Five! What if you fall in your sleep?" She persisted.

He opened his eyes again and peered over the edge of the shelf to finally get a good look at his troublesome sister. The frustrated look on her face made him snicker to himself a little. 

"Allison whats taking so-" Diego casually strutted into the room, only to see Five and stop in his tracks, "oh."

"Yeah _'oh,'_ can you get him down? I can't rumor him."

Neither sibling needed to ask why she couldn't rumor him. It was widely accepted by the rest of his siblings that although Five is the oldest, they will treat him as the youngest. This, of course, annoys him to no end, but no matter how many threats he makes or injuries he inflicts, they still see him as a kid.

Much more than the others, Allison especially treats him different. Maybe it was because she grew as a person. She's not the selfish lone wolf that she had bee when Five last saw her.

Or maybe, and this is the more likely explanation, she is projecting her needs as a mother onto Five since she still can't see Claire. 

Despite countless legal battles and documents, the court gave her a minimum of two months continued monitoring and therapy before she can see her daughter again. They had reached that decision three weeks ago, so as they get closer and closer to the date, Allison has become more mothering than ever before, especially with Five.

She sees him as a child. A temporary Claire for her to dote on as practice for the real thing. And as such, she refuses to rumor him.

She's gotten comfortable with rumoring the others again, with small stuff, nothing too big, but the one time she almost rumored Five she'd frozen in place with a horrified look on her face, trembling and lip quivering. Five had had no idea what to do with his suddenly sobbing sister, other than pat her on the shoulder as she got it all out of her system.

Clearly, the event reminded her of the reason she was currently being kept at a safe distance from her daughter.

After that incident, Allison vowed to never use her powers on Five or Vanya ever again. The two had no complaints, it was a relief to be spared from her terrifying power.

Still, it only meant that she still associates him with her child, which is not something that Five appreciates.

Lost in thought, he almost doesn't dodge the knife suddenly coming his way, only teleporting back to the ground a second before it hits the wall behind the shelf.

On the floor again, he immediately tackles Diego for doing that.

"Diego! I said get him down, not _impale_ him!" Allison rushed over, pulling Five off of his struggling brother.

"Relax, it's not like I was gonna kill him. And I got him down, didn't I?" A huffing Diego said as he skirted away from the feral child.

Five scoffed, ending his attack on the other, "As if you would have any chance of killing _me."_

Diego only pointed to him like Five was only proving his point, "See? I knew he'd dodge it. "

Allison looked like she was gonna pop a blood vessel but she simply closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She still looked like she was going to give them a hell of a talking to though, and Five didn't have the patience for that.

"Alright, you said something about dinner?"

Neither of his siblings called him out on only being amenable now that he was on the floor. They just looked at each other with identical expressions of understanding. Both parts tired and fond.

Without giving them a chance to respond, Five teleported into the kitchen, startling Klaus into dropping some of the carrots off of his plate and onto the floor. As he whined, Vanya only turned to him from where they were bringing dishes to the table, amused.

"You didn't give them any trouble, did you?" He asked teasingly, knowing exactly how stubborn Five could be.

"Who, me?" Five innocently pressed a hand to his chest in mock surprise.

Vanya chuckled, giving him a plate already filled with food and gesturing to sit down.

By the time Allison and Diego returned, everyone was seated and waiting. Five simply ignored the glares they gave him, shoving a forkful of food into his mouth without preamble. His ears twitched and the corners of his mouth curved up slightly, betraying his true emotions, but he couldn't find it in himself to care in the slightest.

Being transformed into a cat seemed to have only made Five even more like his younger self. Cunning and antagonizing. And although the family gave him shit for it, he could tell they were glad to see him closer to what they remembered him being. 

Five gives them a cheeky grin, knowing that his actions will be immediately forgiven. 

Just because he hated how people reacted to this body, didn't mean he didn't know _exactly_ how to use it to his advantage. 

Sure enough, Allison cracked a smile, finally looking away from him and joining in on the dinner time conversation. They were talking about dinosaurs or something equally as ridiculous. 

For the first time in a while, Five's heart felt full.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of "you've cat to be kitten me right meow" which is another fic in my "five gets tortured with love" series. You must read that before reading any of these one shots!


End file.
